A Tale of 2 PADDs
by Vicki595
Summary: There’s fiction flying around Voyager, with some very familiar characters…


Disclaimer: I am no one important in Paramount's world. I own nothing.  
  
Rating: PG - 13  
  
  
  
A Tale of Two PADDs  
  
"What's this?" Tom asked, leaning over his wife's shoulder.  
  
"Something I confiscated off one of my engineering staff," she replied. "It's dirty!"  
  
""Commander, my ready room - now!" The captain told him, flicking her hair over her shoulder saucily. Chakotay followed, eagerly, leaving all the bridge officers to speculate as what was to happen in the captain's inner sanctum,"" Tom read, raising his eyebrows. "B'Ela!"  
  
"What? I'm not the one who wrote it," she defended.  
  
"Who did?"  
  
"I don't know - it's anonymous. Not that I blame them," B'Elanna Torres- Paris replied. "Imagine if the captain or commander read it!"  
  
Tom grabbed the PADD out of B'Elanna's hands, and skimmed down. "It's unfinished," he revealed. "But it says, "Submissions must be no more than three PADD pages in length, and be sent to trouble@voyager.sws." I wonder who that is?"  
  
"I don't know, but we can find out," B'Elanna replied, moving over to the computer console. "It's recorded who's which address, and I've got the access to search it. But, it does clear up why the writing style kept changing!"  
  
"No match found," the computer replied. "The username 'trouble' does not appear on the server @voyager.sws."  
  
"What?" exclaimed B'Elanna. "But there's only a few people on board who have the ability to hide names and restrict access to those sorts of files!"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Me, Chakotay, Tuvok, Seven and the captain," B'Elanna replied. "It's not me, and it can't be any of the other four. So who, in Kahless' name is it?"  
  
"Well, my love, it appears that someone has beat the system," Tom replied, as he settled back with the PADD. B'Elanna plucked it out of his hands.  
  
"Mine!"  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
1 Receiving from mailbox trouble@voyager.sws  
  
2 "Unusual Places" Code J/C Chapter 12 Submissions = 4 (jewel@voyager.sws; happy@voyager.sws; flirt1@voyager.sws; shorti@voyager.sws)  
  
3 "The Mosaic Continues." Code J/C Continuation from first paragraph Submissions = 5 (+ 12 previous) (flirt2@voyager.sws; hungry@voyager.sws; doc@voyager.sws; sleepy@voyager.sws; anonymous@voyager.sws)  
  
4 Challenges/ideas Code J/C Submissions = 2 (bfg@voyager.sws; spicy@voyager.sws)  
  
5 Challenges/ideas Code T/P Submissions = 1 (sleepy@voyager.sws)  
  
Challenges/ideas Code Other Submissions = 4 (bfg@voyager.sws; bug@voyager.sws; horny_devil@voyager.sws; hippy_chick@voyager.sws)  
  
Miscellaneous messages = 6 (sleepy@voyager.sws; snow_white@voyager.sws; satan@voyager.sws; ace@voyager.sws; no_angel@voyager.sws; portent@voyager.sws)  
  
Total new = 24  
  
Total in account = 92  
  
Signing out.  
  
  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"Tom! What are you doing?" Harry Kim asked, coming up behind his friend in the mess hall. Tom guiltily hid the PADD under the table, but Harry had glanced at the contents.  
  
"That looked like that piece of fiction everyone seems to be reading," he declared, grinning. "Has the new chapter been added on yet?"  
  
"Yes - and don't tell B'Ela, but I'm going to be submitting in an idea!" Tom confessed in a whisper, as he leant across the table to Harry. "What *really* happened when we left them on that planet, before Seska stranded you lot on that planet, and I had to save both you and the ship with only the Doc for backup! And I'm trying to write Chapter 13 for that piece of fiction, as you put it."  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Sounds good." He leant over the table. "Rumour has it that someone suggested a love triangle between the captain, Chakotay and you!"  
  
"What?" exploded Tom.  
  
"Still, at least it wasn't you, me and Chakotay!"  
  
"Harry Kim - are you sure you're old enough to be reading this stuff?" Tom asked, waving the PADD in front of his friend's face. It was snatched out of his hand, and Tom looked up to see B'Elanna standing there, holding a tray and his PADD.  
  
"Oh, is the new chapter up yet?" she asked, swallowing what food she had left in her mouth. She skimmed the text briefly, then turned to Tom.  
  
"Is this what I think it is?" she asked, sitting down in between them. Tom turned crimson, and nodded. B'Elanna threw the PADD back to him.  
  
"Couldn't you be a bit more inventive at least?" she asked, to both Tom and Harry's surprise. "It's just that the Jefferies tubes are a bit, well, you know, run of the mill."  
  
"And where do you propose I send them, love?" Tom wanted to know. B'Elanna paused for a minute, chewing another mouthful of food.  
  
"Well, they almost got caught by yours truly in my office, Tuvok walked in when they were in the ready room, so they were on their way to sickbay before I got interrupted," she said. The men looked at her in shock.  
  
"You wrote a chapter!" Tom exclaimed. "I thought you said it was dirty."  
  
"That doesn't mean I don't like it. You're dirty and I like you - sometimes!" Harry tried to hide a laugh, before hurriedly getting up, and giving a feeble excuse.  
  
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and see Seven."  
  
The Paris' waited until he had gone, then turned to each other. "How about a Harry/Seven fiction?" Tom asked, grinning.  
  
"I'm more interested in finding a Paris/Torres," his wife confessed.  
  
"Maybe would could 'act out' some of the more, interesting ones," Tom suggested, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.  
  
"Maybe," was B'Elanna's reply, as she left him alone with his story. Tom frowned as he turned back to his story. How about a blackout on the bridge, he thought to himself, grinning, as he tapped some commands on the PADD.  
  
Kathryn Janeway was relaxing in the bath, a glass of wine in her hand when the door chime rang. Groaning, she asked the computer who was standing outside her door.  
  
"Commander Chakotay," came back the mechanical reply.  
  
"Come," she called, sinking further into the mass of bubbles.  
  
She could hear the door slide open, and knew that he was looking around for her.  
  
"Kathryn?" he called, puzzled.  
  
"I'm in the bath," she replied, sipping on her wine. "And I'm not getting out, even for you Commander."  
  
Chakotay appeared at the door, and smiled at her. "Maybe I should get in with you instead."  
  
"If you really want to," she replied lazily, not really listening to the conversation.  
  
"Alright then."  
  
"Huh. What was that?" Kathryn asked, waking up slightly.  
  
"You just invited me to take a bath with you," Chakotay told her, grinning.  
  
"Serves you right for visiting me while I'm in the bath," she told him. "Anyway, there's not room for you as well."  
  
"Oh, I'm not so sure about that one," Chakotay replied. "We could always try it."  
  
"Did you come here for a reason, Commander, or was just to interrupt my bath?" Kathryn asked, looking pointedly at him.  
  
Chakotay handed her a PADD. "I confiscated this off one of the junior officers," he told her.  
  
She skimmed the contents of the PADD. "So that's what the crew thinks we do in the ready room," she replied, handing it back to Chakotay.  
  
"They're pretty accurate, aren't they?" he replied, grinning. Kathryn thought about it.  
  
"They're more inventive than we are, I'll give them that," she replied.  
  
"Well, maybe we should, you know, 'act out' some of the best ones," Chakotay suggested.  
  
"Tom! That's brilliant!" B'Elanna squealed, as she finished reading her husband's latest proposed addition to the story index. "I love it!"  
  
Tom grinned at B'Elanna's enthusiasm. "I just thought I'd throw in a little twist," he replied. "Lots more fun if they're actually going to be acting out those scenes."  
  
"And what scenes are those, Mr Paris?" Kathryn asked, as she walked into the mess hall. Tom quickly hid the PADD under the table.  
  
"We're considering putting on a play for the crew, Captain," he said. "We were just discussing what play to do - Earth literature or another, then we'd have to decide on the era, and cast the parts. Would you be interested in auditioning?"  
  
"I don't think acting's one of my strengths, thank you Tom," Kathryn replied.  
  
"Are you sure Captain? You made a bewitching Arachnia."  
  
"You're pushing it, Lieutenant," Kathryn warned him, as she left to join Chakotay, who had just come in, and was sitting on the other side of the mess hall.  
  
"That was close," B'Elanna remarked. "You'd better submit that quickly, in case they come over again."  
  
Tom did, and the text disappeared from the screen.  
  
"You do realise that now we're going to have to put on a play for the rest of the crew," B'Elanna stated. Tom grinned  
  
"No problem," he said, tapping on the PADD.  
  
"Voyager Amateur Dramatics Society," B'Elanna read, arching her eyebrows. "Who's organising that then?"  
  
"I am, along with Alexia Holmes and Lucy Jor," Tom replied. "That's why I said about a play, as auditions will be announced soon."  
  
"Tom, you're unbelievable," B'Elanna told him, leaning over the table for a kiss.  
  
"I know."  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"I like the submission from black_coffee for 'Unusual Places'."  
  
"No, I feel the chapter from deja_vous works much better."  
  
"I didn't like that one. How about the one from blue_babe?"  
  
"It was too frivolous. Doc's was much more substantial."  
  
"They're looking for entertainment, not the next literacy masterpiece. The one from Jedi was very entertaining."  
  
"It had no plot! How about this one from spicy?"  
  
"Are you kidding? Are there anymore?"  
  
"Two. One from dare_devil and one from groovy_baby."  
  
"How about the one from dare_devil?"  
  
"Agreed."  
  
"Now, onto the ideas submissions."  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"B'Ela! Mine was posted," Tom exclaimed the next morning as he automatically checked his PADD.  
  
"That's great news," B'Elanna replied. "That means the sequel I wrote this morning wasn't in vain after all!"  
  
"Let's see it then," Tom said, holding his hand out. B'Elanna shook her head.  
  
"Later, or we're going to be late for the meeting," she reminded him.  
  
"What are we going to do about these pieces of fiction floating around the ship?" Kathryn asked.  
  
Chakotay grinned. "Well, they can hardly be called fiction, can they?"  
  
Kathryn laughed as she felt his arms pull her closer. "No, I suppose not. But they can't continue forever, or they'll know all our secrets!"  
  
"I'll sort it out, love. Don't worry. I'll let them know they've been discovered," Chakotay reassured her.  
  
"An interesting ending to the fiction," Kathryn remarked, as she sat in her ready room. "The commander proposing to the captain in the middle of the Prixin party."  
  
"The Prixin party? I thought they'd just celebrated the captain's birthday?" Chakotay asked in disbelief.  
  
Kathryn laughed. "Ah, but time has no place in stories like that. Was there anything else, or was that the extent of your reason to visit me."  
  
"Last time I checked I never needed a reason, but there was actually." Chakotay got down on his knee, and opened a small box.  
  
"Kathryn, will you marry me?"  
  
On the bridge, Kathryn gasped as she read the last line on the PADD. Everyone turned to look at her, but she had only eyes for the man sitting next to her.  
  
"Yes." 


End file.
